What the World Bank knows

Interesting article in The Economist print edition on 11 Jan 2007, What the World Bank knows (... And what it only thinks it knows):

NOW that many of its biggest customers no longer really need its money, the World Bank prides itself on the ideas and advice it offers alongside its cash. It calls itself the “Knowledge Bank”. For the first time in more than 20 years, it has invited a group of top academic economists, chaired by Angus Deaton of Princeton University, to inspect its intellectual books in full. The inspectors liked a lot of what they found*. But they said the Knowledge Bank was too often guilty of breaching prudential limits. Its leaders have staked out bold positions on some of the biggest questions in development without enough intellectual capital to back them up.

[via the KNOW Network]

The article describes the results of this analysis of the World Bank's "intellectual books," including things that are going well and those that aren't.  And they reference the Evaluation of Bank Research report at the World Bank.